Inkitt members can solicit feedback for in-progress work on the online forum, or post full manuscripts in the beta readers section, to be read by the app’s over one million readers. Users post further feedback and reviews, while Inkitt itself monitors the reader engagement data, and can publish the works if this points to a potential bestseller.

Inkitt founder Ali Albazaz told Tech Crunch the publisher ‘analyses reader behavior and engagement’. ‘If they start reading and stay up all night to continue reading, if they use every break during the day to continue reading your story, we look at this reader behaviour in order to see if a book is good or not good,’ said Albazaz. ‘We are basically a full publishing house but without acquisition editors. Inkitt is about author equality not about what you have done before or the network you have. Three years later we are proving that our approach works. We are able to predict bestsellers with incredible accuracy.’

The company also uses Facebook logins, for demographic data on its readers, which Albazaz says ‘puts it in a position to be able to make decisions very objectively’. ‘If we see that the metrics are great, we offer the author a publishing deal’.

The company says 22 of the 24 books its published have become Amazon bestsellers. Inkitt, which has made its publishing contract accessible to the public, pays its authors 25% of ebook sales royalties and 51% of print book royalties.